president carter signed the bill into law in 1978. it was the law of the land for more than 20 years, until it got amended under president george w. bush. you might remember this. a patriot act and a number of other congressional acts vastly diminished fisa's privacy protections and expanded the goth's ability to spy on you and on me and all americans to tap our phones and read our e-mails. and in the end, you would probably never even know they were doing it. and we as a country, at that time, we had a huge fight about it. it was a major issue in the 2004 presidential campaign when president bush and john kerry. in the 2008 democratic primary, then senators clinton and obama, they fought about it. they even ended up voting on opposite sides of the issue when it came up for a vote that summer. fisa, and whether or not we already have a government with too much power to spy on us, whether or not there should be more congressional and judicial oversight of that power, whether or not more should be done to protect people's privacy, our c